"Cute" is a seasonal verity, particularly at holiday bazaars. What's a Christmas craft fair without precious pine cone rings, crocheted tea cozies or knitted kittens wreathed in boughs of holly?
With a sly spin on mainstream decorative culture, though, a legion of "indie" artisans has unleashed a new wave of holiday craft shows, where potholders, aprons and ceramic mugs are as saucy as they are cute.
At Charm City Craft Mafia's "Holiday Heap" show Dec. 1 at St. John's of Baltimore United Methodist Church, expect a marketplace crammed with such holly-jolly subversion.
Here's a small sampling of Holiday Heap's offerings: Dresses silk-screened with mock-kitsch images of kitchen wares; knitted, fingerless gloves for the biker about town and adorable cotton monsters with fiendish grins.
A local flurry of other seasonal craft shows, including today's "Bazaart" fundraising fair at the American Visionary Art Museum, aren't necessarily inspired by the current DIY craze, which favors homemade everything over pre-fab anything, yet the shows still reflect the creative leaps contemporary artisans take with entrepreneurial gusto.
The proliferation of craft shows with a DIY spirit speaks to a new generation of young entrepreneurs who want to apply their skills in fresh, small-scale ways, says Craft Mafia member Rachel Bone, 25. A painter and printmaker trained at Syracuse University, Bone produces a droll line of silk-screen scarves, dresses and T-shirts for her company, Red Prairie Press, based in her Hampden home.
Craft Mafia member Christalena Hughmanick, also 25, makes ponchos in a wavy lace motif and fingerless gloves in a trademark honeycomb pattern for It Knits, her one-woman company in Mount Vernon. Hughmanick and other artists are using "traditional processes in a new, funky way," she says.
Vendors found at Holiday Heap and other alternative fairs both set and heed trends, as evidenced by the display of scores of au courant messenger bags, jewelry made from recycled materials, cheeky underwear, winsome watercolors, homegrown CDs and organic body-care products.
Holiday Heap's participating artists are also chosen for their modest pricing, which ranges, with one exception, from $1 to $100. Only the six-string cigar-box guitars by m3this, a Silver Spring company, cost more, Bone says. "We want people to afford our stuff," she says. "We want it to be a shopping event, not a looking event."
